"And mother, when the big tears fall,
(And fall, God knows, they may)
Tell him I died of my great love
And my dying heart was gay.
And mother dear, when the sun has set
And the pale kirk grass waves,
Then carry me through the dim twilight
And hide me among the graves."
--Elizabeth Siddal Rossetti, "At Last"
"Worms-meat, n. The final product of which we are the raw material."
--Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
David Cronenberg is 82 years old at this writing and there's no telling if he'll ever make another film. The Shrouds (2025) is as good a valediction as anything. It is a more deeply personal film for the director than anything he's made since The Brood. It's a film that's drenched in an awareness of impending death. His death. His family's death. Everyone's death. As the title suggests, this film is a memento mori, more so than any other film the director has ever made. Cronenberg has always been curious about the mechanisms of life and evolution. In this film, he turns that curiosity on death, as both a physical process--a state of being in the world--and as a psychic phenomenon in which the connections between people, particularly lovers, are severed by the Grim Reaper's scythe.
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